The conventional information processing apparatus including plural hardware resources, a service processor having a CPU (Central Processing Unit) and a memory with a limited area to manage the hardware resources, and a firmware operated on the service processor, is widely used. This information processing apparatus monitors the hardware resources thereon and in the case where a fault develops in any of the hardware resources, notifies the fault information to the management server. The information processing apparatus may lack the function of the service processor displaying the fault state of the information processing apparatus, the management tool function such as the partitioning of the hardware resources and the hot swap menu of the parts, and the storage area storing the logging data. In such an information processing apparatus, the server manager of the connected management server unit manages the fault state and the area using a GUI (Graphical User Interface) or a command line.
In the information processing apparatus described above, the process of notifying the fault information of the hardware resources to the management server is explained with reference to FIG. 19. As depicted in FIG. 19, the information processing apparatus is connected to the management server for managing the information processing apparatus and includes the hardware resources and a service processor for monitoring the fault state of the hardware resources. The information processing apparatus further includes a database DB1 providing a non-volatile hardware storing the causes of the fault developed by the hardware resources and a database DB2 providing a volatile hardware storing the fault state of the hardware resource that has developed the fault. The information processing apparatus further includes an analysis program/hardware monitoring software for executing the process of restoring and notifying fault information, an event distribution software, an error management software and a reporting software. The DB1 constituting the non-volatile hardware used in this configuration is, for example, a NVRAM (Non-Volatile Random Access Memory) or a HDD (Hard Disk Drive) to hold the fault information even in the case where the power of the information processing apparatus is turned off. The DB2 constituting a volatile hardware, on the other hand, is the DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) or SRAM (Static Random Access Memory). The DB2, therefore, unlike the DB1, loses the fault information when the power of the information processing apparatus is turned off and holds the new information when the information processing apparatus is rebooted.
Incidentally, the two DBs including DB1 and DB2 are used to reduce the hardware cost of the service processor by using the non-volatile storage unit low in cost per bit for the DB1 requiring a larger storage area, and the volatile storage unit high in cost per bit for the DB2 requiring a smaller storage area than the DB1.
Specifically, the information processing apparatus is monitored by the service processor (see, (1) of FIG. 19), and all the functions of the service processor can be used. Upon occurrence of a fault in the hardware resources in this state, the analysis program/hardware monitoring software receives the fault information notification by interruption or polling monitoring (see, (2) of FIG. 19). Then, the analysis program/hardware monitoring software stores the physical position of the hardware resource that has developed the fault and the cause of the fault in the DB1 (see, (3) of FIG. 19) and sends a fault notification event transmission request to the event distribution software (see, (4) of FIG. 19).
FIG. 20 is a diagram depicting an example of the information delivered to the event distribution software from the hardware monitoring software according to the prior art. FIG. 21 is a diagram depicting the contents of the information delivered to the event distribution software from the hardware monitoring software according to the prior art. The information delivered by this analysis program/hardware monitoring software to the event distribution software is the binary data fixed at 128 bytes as depicted in FIG. 20, and has a format including the occurrence time, the detection source, the faulty component name and the character string indicating the cause of the fault. Also, the contents and the faulty component name of each format have the contents as depicted in FIG. 21.
The event distribution software that has received the fault notification event transmission request from the analysis program/hardware monitoring software notifies the fault notification event to the error management software (see, (5) of FIG. 19). FIG. 22 is a diagram depicting an example of the information delivered to the error management software from the event distribution software according to the prior art, and FIG. 23 is a diagram depicting the contents of the information delivered to the error management software from the event distribution software according to the prior art. The information delivered by this event distribution software to the error management software, as depicted in FIG. 22, is the binary data fixed at 128 bytes and has a format including the occurrence time, the detection source, the faulty component name and the character string indicating the cause of the fault. Also, the contents and the faulty component name of each format are as depicted in FIG. 23.
Then, the error management software, upon reception of the fault notification event from the event distribution software, accesses the DB1 storing the cause of the fault and detects the fault state of the hardware resource from the cause of the fault corresponding to the fault notification event (see, (6) of FIG. 19). After that, the fault state of the hardware resource derived from the cause of the fault in the DB1 is stored in the DB2 by the error management software (see, (7) of FIG. 19), and the fault information is notified to the reporting software (see, (8) of FIG. 19). FIG. 24 is a diagram depicting an example of the information delivered to the reporting software by the error management software according to the prior art. FIG. 25 is a diagram depicting the contents of the information delivered to the reporting software by the error management software according to the prior art. The information delivered to the reporting software by this error management software, as depicted in FIG. 24, is the binary data fixed at 128 bytes and includes the occurrence time, the detection source, the fault component name and the character string indicating the cause of the fault. Also, the contents of the format and the specific name of the faulty component are depicted in FIG. 25.
The reporting software notifies the fault information to the management server managing the information processing apparatus (see, (9) of FIG. 19). After that, the system manager confirms, in the management server, the fault information notified by the information processing apparatus, and grasps the setting and status of the information processing apparatus to carry out the maintenance operation.
Recently, an information processing apparatus having a service processor requiring no management server has come to be provided by the reduced price of the storage unit and the increased CPU processing speed. In this information processing apparatus, the number of the software and the hardware for operating the software is increased in order to mount the function of the management server, while at the same time requiring the OS (operating system) to have a function such as the multitask.    [Non-Patent Document 1] “System Control Facility”,     [online], [search on Dec. 19, 2007], Internet<URL: http://primeserver.fujitsu.com/primepower/technology/reliance/monitor/>    [Non-Patent Document 2] “High-End Server System Management Console)”, [online], [search on Dec. 19, 2007], Internet<URL: http://primeserver.fujitsu.com/primepower/products/lineup/pp 2500/point.html>    [Non-Patent Document 3] “Sun Enterprise 10000 SSP 3.5 User Guide”, [online], [search on Dec. 19, 2007], Internet<URL: http://dlc.sun.com/pdf/816-3624-10/816-3624-10.pdf>